Another pep talk was dished out by the Mrs last night. The conversation went-
Me- I'm off to Fraserburgh tomorrow, 25 miles along the beach to Peterhead.
Mrs- Erm, you should be doing hillwork.
Me- Well, yes but a change of scenery is good.
Mrs- Nope, I saw the state you were in after the Fling and you said not enough hillwork had been done in practice.
Me- Hmm, I suppose so.
Mrs- So, you sould be doing your training on Bennachie.
Bennachie it was then, a decision I would regret by the end of the day.
I arrived at the Rowantree car park at nine o'clock. Being on call, my workmate Dave agreed to take calls while I was training today which was a boost. I planned to visit all hill peaks on the Bennachie range and take in Cairn William which would be linked by a couple of miles road running.
From the car park I took the trail skirting the hill before starting to climb at the back o bennachie. This part was in shade and quite cool so I had my running jacket on. Soon I was on the plateau and visiting Little Oxen Craig, Craigshannoch and Oxen Craig. I would leave Mither Tap till last. I needed to fill the water bottles by this time so descended to the Gordon Way, only taking in a mile of this trail today to reach my watering spring. I felt a bit queezy by this stage and only realised I was overheating, still wearing my running jacket in the bright sunshine. The temperature shift between the back and front of Bennachie must have been 10 degree c. I stopped at the spring, filled the bottles, cooled my head and packed away the jacket.
Feeling much better I headed for Mill Stone Hill, passing quite a few walkers and cyclists on the way. I reached the peak, took a quick drink and began to descend to the Lords Throat where the road section would start. This descent is quite steep with boulders and stones arranged to act as steps. On this section I took a picture for my profile page and was almost off the hill when I went over my ankle. I continued to run hoping it would sort itself out so I could complete the run. After a mile road running I came to my senses and made my way to the River Don to check the foot out. Todays run was over but I still had to get back to the car. With no phone signal I had two choices, walk the way too long road back round to the car park or go back the way I came which was much shorter but took in two hills.
I decided on the hills as my foot was okay if kept flat. As this was likely to be my last outing for a while I kept the GPS watch running to add the walk back as part of my training, this turned out to be over five miles.
The going was slow, 22 minute miles as I made my way back to the car park in the heat.
On reaching the car I toyed with the idea of getting my foot checked out straight away but on second thoughts went home to freshen up first.
So a sprained ankle it is, RICE for 48 hours and yet another set of exercises to do which I probably won't.
Looks like two weeks off running but I'll try to concentrate on building up my core strength during this period. I'll also be back to complete this run once I have recovered.
Sat 7.12 miles 1.05.25 Sun 15 miles 4.15.06 Weekly total 41 miles.
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